Moving this video to chilaxe's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.

*promote

Self promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued - promote requested by original submitter chilaxe.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

Why does this guy look like he's sitting in the uncanny valley? Most cgi looking real person I've ever seen.

Maybe we should realize that one year of bonuses given to the CEO of Chicken of the Sea would pay all the wages of every Samoan worker alive for 5 years.

I have to ask the question, though: was that tiny little hike in price REALLY something that FORCED them to move to Georgia and mechanize? It's true that it made doing business in Samoa less profitable, but I'm positive it didn't make it unfeasible. We're looking at runaway "good enough is never good enough" economics. A company that simply didn't care if they left an entire island devastated and just wanted more money.

>> ^Enzoblue:
Maybe we should realize that one year of bonuses given to the CEO of Chicken of the Sea would pay all the wages of every Samoan worker alive for 5 years.


You would be very surprised how quickly wages add up. Chicken of the Sea only recently became profitable again.

"Chicken of the Sea has been around since the early 1920s and the company generates an estimated $400 million in annual revenue and employs 2,500 workers."

This isn't some oil or insurance company we are talking about...its canned tuna. They don't make enough to pay for powerful lobbyists...and even if they did what piece of legislation would help in canned food besides lowering min wage?

"Signorino’s (new, ambitious CEO) goal is to take the firm from its annual revenue run rate of approximately $400 million to double digit growth within three years on the top and bottom lines, with the bottom line outpacing the top line. In addition to a more financially sound organization; Signorino wants to leave behind a new culture as his legacy."

That guy deserves a bonus if he can pull it off, his over all goal would most likely employ close to double his current number of employees. There is a difference between a bonus for someone who bankrupted a company knowingly or by risky investment. It is another for a dude to take a company that was about to fold and return them to profitability, and potentially expanding their market share...not just anyone can do that.

But he wasn't able to, he had to close his plant because of outside people telling him how much to pay his workers.

Sixty Minutes is pretty liberal? Riiiiight.

Same old shit.

The investor class has too little, the working class has too much.

Minimum wage saves jobs, because we all know it's better to work like a slave for a pittance rather than be unemployed altogether.

Fuck you, Peter Schiff.

Solution? Tax the shit out of Chicken of the Sea and subsidize the people of Samoa.

"From the results of the Household Income and Expenditure Survey in 1997, overall 48% of households do not have sufficient daily food expenditure to meet their estimated food requirements."

(source)

Yeah, Pete, they were living high on the hog with only 48% of the population who couldn't afford enough to eat properly.

>> ^dag:
Why does this guy look like he's sitting in the uncanny valley? Most cgi looking real person I've ever seen.


Ya, I think it is the way he blinks. It seems so forceful or something...

>> ^rougy:
Solution? Tax the shit out of Chicken of the Sea and subsidize the people of Samoa.


That doesn't sound like a solution. Hopefully Samoans can find some other market niche to occupy. I don't think permawelfare is a state anyone would want to live in, though I agree they weren't doing great even when they had those canneries.

I don't have any education in economics but I've played RTS computer games. It seems like Samoa needs to tool its industries towards providing for their residents because importing costs so much. Once they're more or less self-sufficient (which you might define as 90-95% living above poverty level), then they can look for industries that they can produce at home and export abroad, and pay for their imports. The canneries might have even hurt them, because they became so reliant on one export to provide the capital for their whole economy, and if that company goes under or pulls out or tuna has a bad year, the whole country suffers. I remember a story like that in Africa where they tried turning a region into a heavy peanut-producer, in order to export them to foreign markets, and the plan totally failed and the farmers were even worse off than before because the peanut market went through a sudden change and prices dropped.

@dag

He's actually a cyborg sent back from the future to kill Sarah Connor and foil the resistance when SkyNet becomes self aware.

@Lodurr

Yeah, countries that are dependent on a single industry or product are referred to as banana republics. When it comes down to it, it's very hard for a developing economy to avoid this pitfall. Agrarian based economies are at the whims of commodity prices, bad harvests or weather conditions. Manufacturing based economies which produce consumer gadgets suffer substantially more from bad economic conditions because they usually fall into wants rather than needs and consumers in rich countries can put off buying them.

@rougy

So, you tax them and to avoid the tax they either funnel their profits through tax havens if they don't already do this, or they simply move offshore. In this day and age you can't coerce companies to pay workers a good wage, let alone a living wage in most cases, but regardless the fact that they're willing to work under these conditions suggests they are better off with employment rather than without. The only reliable way out of that situation is improve academic education, provide valuable trade skills, improve infrastructure or lower trade barriers. Taxing corporations, protectionism or raising the minimum wage are all detrimental on the other hand.

*promote

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Wednesday, January 20th, 2010 9:35pm PST - promote requested by RedSky.

If Tropico 3 is any indication ; there needs to be more banana plantations - maybe a new warehouse or two, a couple of residential blocks, a trade agreement/bailout plan with Russia and when the economy gets strong install a cheap tourism state at which point we can forget about the natives and prosper! Man, that game was great...

As usual, a libertarian speaks simple logic and people like rougy just don't get it. All companies would have to have limitless profits for minimum wage to not cause unemployment, but we know that most companies operate on razor thin margins. Minimum wage is just price fixing, just like how the Fed price fixes interest rates. If you raised the minimum wage to $100, for example, you cannot deny that it would cause 50+% unemployment and civil unrest because it's so much higher than a naturally arrived average. Labor is a cost in the production of a product, so if a product's costs rise above it's revenue, you're going to go bankrupt or close shop. And since you failed because of indiscriminate artificial price controls rather than your own incompetence, it's unlikely new jobs are popping up elsewhere for the unemployed to migrate to.

The price of labor is set in the market the same way as any other product: competitive bidding. Company A wants the same labor as Company B and labor is finite and very mobile. Millions of businesses need low-skill labor, there is no way that many business could simultaneously collude to suppress wages by agreeing to not offer more than the other. What's hilarious is that Peter is giving an example of a job that is so low-skilled and niche that it becomes less economical than an inferior robot. The next time you guys slam the phone on the desk because you're talking to a foreigner or robot CSR, blame the minimum wage because that's what made it impossible to hire a 16 year old kid here at $4.50 to do that menial job. The next time you stumble around a dark movie theater trying to find a seat, blame the MW for killing off that job, too. The list goes on.

Upvote for information about American Samoa. Half a downvote for the baseless, dataless generalization to the U.S. economy. Average score: Upvote, despite Peter Schiff's argument looking suspiciously similar to swiss cheese.

Another way of looking at it is that the more folks genuinely increase their value to the economy, the more it becomes genuinely economic to use machines, freeing humankind from lives of tedious labor.

People will be used for low-skill jobs as long as they are the most cost-effective option. There is no shortage of unskilled workers. There is also no real shortage of capable robotics, so it's robots vs people.

The cost of one is going down, while the cost of the other is going up. Outsourcing to another country is also an option, but that still depends on the price/capability trends of robotics.

Perhaps higher taxes on mechanized industries are in our future.

@RedSky, @Lodurr,

Alright, then nationalize the economy of Samoa.

You can force companies to pay living wages.

In fact, it's about the only way you can get them to do it in the first place.

Back in 1997, when Chicken of the Sea was in full stride, 48% of all Samoans did not have enough money to buy adequate food supplies. Not only were they living in poverty, but they were on the brink of starvation.

The problem is, free-market devotees think that a problem like that will magically solve itself.

The fact is, problems like that are caused by free-market "necessities" in the first place.

The exploitation of labor is not an occasional, unfortunate side-effect of corporatism.

It is its very heart.

@chilaxe

Studies are showing that the healthiest and longest-lived people in the world do some daily manual labor their whole life. There's nothing tedious about accomplishing something with your own sweat and two hands: in fact there's nothing more rewarding.

@rougy, @BansheeX

BansheeX's argument makes sense on principle, but there are recent examples of the dangers of corporatism, and some old examples that we like to forget (sweat shops, factory conditions in the 1800s). The ideal is a capitalist system with strong regulation and oversight from a magically uncorruptable democratic government. Corrupt oversight and regulation is worse than none at all; but responsible oversight is absolutely necessary.

It's interesting that Chicken of the Sea didn't even relocate to a new country with different rules. They simply invested in robotics when manual labor became too expensive. Samoa was very poor before, but it's even poorer now that Chicken of the Sea is gone. They will need aid from the government but it has to be used properly to build their infrastructure and provide better jobs that are stable in the long-term.

Conservatives object to the minimum wage because it leads to unemployment?

Automatically discredited.

"Conservatives" don't like anything that takes money out of their pocket and gives it to the poor. They love it when poor people are desperate and starving.

>> ^Lodurr:
Studies are showing that the healthiest and longest-lived people in the world do some daily manual labor their whole life. There's nothing tedious about accomplishing something with your own sweat and two hands: in fact there's nothing more rewarding.

Physical activity is certainly a very healthy thing.

Personally though, I'd rather go hiking than bolt wheels to car frames every day.

It's not accidental when it's intentional.

@rougy: Have you ever wondered why the fishing industry in America has been in decline since the 1970s? There used to be all sorts of fishing boats and canneries operating out of San Diego. They've all moved overseas because the regulations and taxes were too high. Were you one of the people that thought you used to eat dolphin meat in your tuna?

Coriolanus: "'Conservatives' don't like anything that takes money out of their pocket and gives it to the poor. They love it when poor people are desperate and starving."

No. In fact, conservatives would be happy if the entire world had a middle class like America's, as it would actually bring in global peace and social justice, things which a lot of idiots say they want, but whose policies backfire and cause the opposite.

Also, look into the rates of charity giving between conservatives and liberals some time. If liberals cared so much about the poor, why don't they give money to help the poor?

Stop reading your idiot-child Chomsky, and look at real world statistics some time, before drawing stupid conclusions like the above.

>> ^Psychologic:
>> ^Lodurr:
Studies are showing that the healthiest and longest-lived people in the world do some daily manual labor their whole life. There's nothing tedious about accomplishing something with your own sweat and two hands: in fact there's nothing more rewarding.
Physical activity is certainly a very healthy thing.
Personally though, I'd rather go hiking than bolt wheels to car frames every day.


I didn't think much of physical labor either until I worked at the local airport, coincidentally with a lot of Samoans. The best kind of work is something that uses all your faculties--where you need to think and process what you're working with, where you communicate and coordinate with others constantly, and where your body is always moving and being challenged incrementally. I'd still be on the ramp today if I could live off that wage and support my family.

There's a real sense of accomplishment too with manual labor, that you did something real that others will see and appreciate. Cannery workers might think about people opening and eating their well-packed tuna cans. I used to think about every plane I worked on as it took off, how I put up the container locks, closed the cargo doors, then pushed it back from the gate, and now it's flying.

>> ^ShakaUVM:
Coriolanus: "'Conservatives' don't like anything that takes money out of their pocket and gives it to the poor. They love it when poor people are desperate and starving."
No. In fact, conservatives would be happy if the entire world had a middle class like America's, as it would actually bring in global peace and social justice, things which a lot of idiots say they want, but whose policies backfire and cause the opposite.
Also, look into the rates of charity giving between conservatives and liberals some time. If liberals cared so much about the poor, why don't they give money to help the poor?
Stop reading your idiot-child Chomsky, and look at real world statistics some time, before drawing stupid conclusions like the above.


Really? Examples, please. Show me examples of this global corporatist largess.

Here's one of mine:

NEW YORK - How can Michael Eisner, CEO of the Walt Disney Company, afford to pay himself $97,600 an hour? Easy. He contracts manufacturers who pay workers in Haiti who sew Pocahantas, Mickey Mouse and other Disney clothing for 28 cents an hour.
(source)

28 cents an hour. Disney labor in Haiti.

How fast would a middle class blossom at that rate?

@rougy

If you nationalize their economy you're essentially expropriating the domestic capital owned by these corporations. This will put an end to all other foreign direct investment for obvious reasons. That will result in the long term in much fewer jobs, innovation, and access to lower variety of products and technology.

In the long term and with good governance, there is no reason living standards wouldn't improve. Low wages versus no employment will push down birth rates, and will reduce poverty. Good use of the tax revenue that comes from this employment could improve education and infrastructure, and create a workforce which is then sufficient trained to take on more specialized and higher paying professions, with the infrastructure in place to support new industries.

Beyond incidents where executives have undue power over the board of directors, the fact is the reason these executives are paid such high salaries is because they are short in supply and have rare skills. Nobody likes the fact there are such outrageous salary disparities between different corporate tiers, but education and training are they key to bridging this gap rather than mandates which in a globalised world are simply counter-productive.

>> ^rougy:
>> ^ShakaUVM:
Coriolanus: "'Conservatives' don't like anything that takes money out of their pocket and gives it to the poor. They love it when poor people are desperate and starving."
No. In fact, conservatives would be happy if the entire world had a middle class like America's, as it would actually bring in global peace and social justice, things which a lot of idiots say they want, but whose policies backfire and cause the opposite.
Also, look into the rates of charity giving between conservatives and liberals some time. If liberals cared so much about the poor, why don't they give money to help the poor?
Stop reading your idiot-child Chomsky, and look at real world statistics some time, before drawing stupid conclusions like the above.

Really? Examples, please. Show me examples of this global corporatist largess.
Here's one of mine:
NEW YORK - How can Michael Eisner, CEO of the Walt Disney Company, afford to pay himself $97,600 an hour? Easy. He contracts manufacturers who pay workers in Haiti who sew Pocahantas, Mickey Mouse and other Disney clothing for 28 cents an hour.
(source)
28 cents an hour. Disney labor in Haiti.
How fast would a middle class blossom at that rate?


You're using Michael Eisner as an example of a conservative? No wonder you're confused.

http://www.newsmeat.com/ceo_political_donations/Michael_Eisner.php

My guess is that if you're uneducated enough to think that Eisner is a conservative, you're in for quite a shock if you actually look at how many large business people are liberals. It's not by random chance - it's in their self interest to see Democrats win. If you'd like, I'll even explain why.

"...It's in their self interest to see Democrats win. If you'd like, I'll even explain why."

Why?

When I was 16, I was all in favor of increasing the minimum wage, but then I grew up.

Minimum Wage makes no sense. The economy is a closed loop. If wages are pushed up, prices are pushed up, and you have no benefit. You simply can't lift one end without expecting the other to rise. And now in our globalized economy, companies will simply pull up stakes and head somewhere cheaper. Or automate, as in this example. So you have higher prices with fewer jobs. It's stupid, and short-sighted.

It's all well and good to ensure good working conditions, but meddling with prices only looks good to people who can't see past their paychecks.

@ShakaUVM

Did you disprove the FACT that Haitians were paid 28 cents per hour?

For the benefit of an American corporation?

No, you didn't.

Would you like to try again?

@rougy: Dude, talk about a non-sequitor. I said that conservatives help poor people more, and they do indeed give more to charity. You responded with something about Michael Eisner exploiting people, and I pointed out he's a liberal, and that big corporations love big government. (Why? Because regulation hurts small businesses more. After The Jungle came out, all the large meat packing corporations lobbied FOR more regulations. Didn't know that, eh?) I'm not sure how you read that as me trying to disprove the wages paid to Haitians or whatever.

You also think that taxing fishing companies more would somehow improve the lot of people in American Samoa, when it would actually do what taxes have always done to fishing companies - push them even further overseas, thus hurting those that your bleeding heart is trying to protect. Taxes and regulations annihilated the fishing and canning industry here in San Diego.

>> ^ShakaUVM:
@<A rel="nofollow" href="http://www.videosift.com/member/rougy" title="member since June 3rd, 2007" class="profilelink">rougy: Dude, talk about a non-sequitor. I said that conservatives help poor people more, and they do indeed give more to charity. You responded with something about Michael Eisner exploiting people, and I pointed out he's a liberal, and that big corporations love big government. (Why? Because regulation hurts small businesses more. After The Jungle came out, all the large meat packing corporations lobbied FOR more regulations. Didn't know that, eh?) I'm not sure how you read that as me trying to disprove the wages paid to Haitians or whatever.
You also think that taxing fishing companies more would somehow improve the lot of people in American Samoa, when it would actually do what taxes have always done to fishing companies - push them even further overseas, thus hurting those that your bleeding heart is trying to protect. Taxes and regulations annihilated the fishing and canning industry here in San Diego.


You don't seem to know much about anything from where I'm sitting.

Wow, conservatives give more pennies to the poor. How nice. But they'll bitch a blue streak if they have to pay them a living wage.

And Eisner is a liberal, because all good liberals pay Haitians 28 cents an hour.

I don't know what you're reading, but it's totally screwed up your head.

No offense.

Oh, hey, I know.

Turn the Samoan girls into prostitutes.

Profitable and capitalistic.

A real win/win.

And all we'd have to do is pay them just enough money to stay alive.

Got I love this country!

>>And Eisner is a liberal, because all good liberals pay Haitians 28 cents an hour.

@rougy: You are so ignorant, I don't even know where to begin. I'm honestly puzzled. Are you confusing "conservative" with "capitalist"? That would explain why you think it impossible for a liberal (translation: communist?) to exploit the poor. Or do you think that being a liberal has nothing to do with, you know, actually being a liberal? I posted a reference demonstrating enough as such - I note you have nothing but baseless statements on your side.

>>Wow, conservatives give more pennies to the poor.

Even the poorest conservatives tend to give to charity. But even the richest liberals tend to not. Look up how much Obama gave before the public spotlight was shined on him.

Have you ever actually studied capitalism in the 3rd world? Idiots like you (who come in fighting for a "living wage") are universally detested by the actual people you are trying to "help".

>> ^ShakaUVM:
>>And Eisner is a liberal, because all good liberals pay Haitians 28 cents an hour.
@<A rel="nofollow" href="http://www.videosift.com/member/rougy" title="member since June 3rd, 2007" class="profilelink">rougy: You are so ignorant, I don't even know where to begin. I'm honestly puzzled. Are you confusing "conservative" with "capitalist"? That would explain why you think it impossible for a liberal (translation: communist?) to exploit the poor. Or do you think that being a liberal has nothing to do with, you know, actually being a liberal? I posted a reference demonstrating enough as such - I note you have nothing but baseless statements on your side.
>>Wow, conservatives give more pennies to the poor.
Even the poorest conservatives tend to give to charity. But even the richest liberals tend to not. Look up how much Obama gave before the public spotlight was shined on him.
Have you ever actually studied capitalism in the 3rd world? Idiots like you (who come in fighting for a "living wage") are universally detested by the actual people you are trying to "help".


And you're the one who's saying that more of the same corporatist bullshit that had 48% of Samoans living without enough food to eat is a good idea.

You're the one who equated Disney with Eisner.

You're vomiting the bile force-fed to you by some emasculated econ professor in some effete business program.

Your examples and metaphors are so obtuse that to even respond to them is an exercise in futility.

You have never bothered to look at this on your own; you're just saying what you've been taught to say by authority figures who had agendas of their own.

I'm with Chavez, da Silva, and Morales all the way.

Structuring a society around the demands of corporate power will lead to, and maintain, poverty faster than any other economic method we know.

Corporations do not "invest" in countries in order to help the people there; in fact, institutions like the IMF and the WTO invest in countries for he purpose of undermining the people there and exploiting their resources, period.

>> ^ShakaUVM:
>>And Eisner is a liberal, because all good liberals pay Haitians 28 cents an hour.
@<A rel="nofollow" href="http://www.videosift.com/member/rougy" title="member since June 3rd, 2007" class="profilelink">rougy: You are so ignorant, I don't even know where to begin. I'm honestly puzzled. Are you confusing "conservative" with "capitalist"? That would explain why you think it impossible for a liberal (translation: communist?) to exploit the poor. Or do you think that being a liberal has nothing to do with, you know, actually being a liberal? I posted a reference demonstrating enough as such - I note you have nothing but baseless statements on your side.
>>Wow, conservatives give more pennies to the poor.
Even the poorest conservatives tend to give to charity. But even the richest liberals tend to not. Look up how much Obama gave before the public spotlight was shined on him.
Have you ever actually studied capitalism in the 3rd world? Idiots like you (who come in fighting for a "living wage") are universally detested by the actual people you are trying to "help".


Who, or what, is your source regarding conservatives giving more to charity?

I've Googled this a bit. Seems that the whole claim is based on one book written by one man.

And repeated verbatim by a million slack-jawed yokels.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=conservatives+give+more+than+liberals